Cyberpunk as a term, originates from the novel 'Cyberpunk', authored by Bruce Bethke in 1980. It comes from a fusion of the terms 'cybernetic' and 'punk'. In other words, 'Cybernetic Punk', shortened to cyberpunk. Over time, an entire genre of science fiction formed around the term. Of particular interest is that because of the nature of cyberpunk fiction, they have as a whole become the single most often used source of inspiration for virtual reality developers ever since.

Cyberpunk is a novelistic style. It is the style of novel that most frequently portrays the probable future with regards to virtual reality, augmented reality, wearable computing, and related technologies. All cyberpunk revolves around a kind of technological freedom, with all manner of technologies exploited by the unscrupulous.

Additionally, many cyberpunk works discuss the many faceted aspects of technologies such as the rise of strong Artificial intelligence, mind uploading, omnipresent augmented reality, brain augmentation, artificially created and digital viruses, and a wide host of other technologies with an analytical, often scientific stance towards them.

What is Cyberpunk?
Cyberpunk as a term, originates from the novel "Cyberpunk", authored by Bruce Bethke in 1980. It comes from a fusion of the terms 'cybernetic' and 'punk'. In other words, 'Cybernetic Punk', shortened to cyberpunk. Since it's inception, it has taken on a like of it's own,. And has become the single most often used source of inspiration for virtual reality developers ever since.

Storming the Reality Studio has been contributed to by many of the top authors of cyberpunk fiction ? or dystopian prophecy, as has often been the case. It is a mix of short stories, excerpts from larger, notable cyberpunk works, and non-fiction essays on the directions of technology and life, following cyberpunk memes, by those same authors. All in all, over 40 visionary minds have contributed to this book.

The Ultimate Cyberpunk is a very good collection of short stories. Several of these ? notably ?The Girl Who Was Plugged In?, ?Dogfight?, and ?Burning Chrome? will strike a chord if you have not read them before.

Bruce Bethke sold the original ?Cyberpunk? story in 1982, where it was buried by the publisher. Cobbled together into a novel in 1989, it was again purchased, and again never made print. As part of our homage to VR in Print, we offer the full novel, distributed as a 1.1mb PDF file.

Bruce Bethke is the writer originally responsible for the creation of the CyberPunk genre. In the early spring of 1980, he wrote the short story ?Cyberpunk?. This was the first ever use of the word ? he coined it for the tale about a gang of teenage hackers.

William Gibson is considered by many to be the father of the Cyberpunk genre, as his first novel, ?Neuromancer? was the first mainstream-popular cyberpunk novel, despite coming out in 1982, 14 years after the start of the genre.

Idoru is a strange novel in many ways. It is a William Gibson cyberpunk novel, set in the dark days of the near future, written by one of the masters of the genre. The book itself is dedicated to a concept that is not quite with us yet, but may well be here in the near future ? cyberpunk apes reality. Idoru concerns the marriage between a human pop star, and an AI controlled, totally virtual woman.

Wearable Display JacketsThe concept of clothing that integrates lighting displays is one that has only recently been realised, yet it hasd been in cyberpunk a long, long time. The original 'electropigment' dating back to Snow Crash itself.

The First Neural-Jack?Japanese researchers have created the very first, incredibly crude, neural-jack interface, a distant ancestor of those seen in cyberpunk and the Matrix films, but of the same lineage all the same.

(10/02/2008)For fans of cyberpunk, or anyone who watched the film Jurassic Park, this development comes as no surprise. A file system in which Quake 3 Arena was used to create a 3D representation of a network of computers, showing activity levels, and ...